---Death---
---Tcakqaal’s perspective---
We’re walking with Representative Mudaliar and his bodyguard, Mr Zvaitika.
Xon, Brunhilda, Ms Hunter, Mr Byrne, Ms Pereira and the newly engaged couple all insisted on coming, causing Emiko to quip that she, Mudaliar and I must be the best defended trio in the galaxy right now(!)
“No… y’see, swords ain’t the best weapon and never have been…” explains Victor “…even historic’ly, even if you limit it to ‘mêlée’ weapons; spears have more reach, maces and warhammers hit with greater impact and axes have better cutting potential… Edge ratio’s about the only thing a sword has goin’ for it in a fight… What the sword was is the best sidearm… the best weapon to have as a backup to your main one or for when you went out not really expectin’ a fight but needin’ to be ready for one…” at this point, he cuts himself off and, along with every other Terran present, adopts a stance of readiness within a fraction of a second of eachother.
I manage to follow their collective gaze fast enough to see something billowing and black as it impacts the pavement in front of us, at a considerable enough speed to crack the paving slab beneath it.
“Zvaitika, Ziva, Leon, Xon, get these three to safety!” commands Victor, loudly and authoritatively, before the hooded [2m] figure has finished drawing up from their landing crouch “Tuun, Samus, Thran, we’ll hold him off!”
Before I’ve even processed what’s happening, I feel a pair of long fingered hands enclose my torso and wings and my legs being lifted from the ground.
I swivel my head to see that Xon is carrying me away.
Mr Mudaliar has been scooped up under Mr Zvaitika’s arm with the latter loping away in a three limbed knucklewalk.
Emiko is the only one of the three of us who has been allowed to stay on her feet, though with the two Intelligence Officers in close order at her back, as we leave her bodyguard and my security team behind.
---Brunhilda’s perspective---
OK, I’m seeing durasteel hands… five fingers… ugly, predatory looking claws… upright gait, like a Terran.
No biological could have withstood an impact like that so I’m guessing this is a cyborg?
AI’s tend not to go in for criminal enterprises so I think they’re quite unlikely to be a full droid.
I suppose it could be a droid being remotely piloted by a person?
Someone looking to target either Emiko or Mudaliar conceivably might have that kind of cash?
“Step out of my way.” says the being, its voice harsh, computerised, male coded and with a distinctly New Coloradoan accent and cadence “None of you are my targets… let me pass and you get to live…”
“We refuse!” shouts Thran, immediately.
I resolve to never threaten any of her charges in future… if we survive this…(!)
“Goooood…” answers the figure, his voice dripping with malicious glee.
“You’ve got rather a flair for the dramatic, don’t you!” I shout, stalling for time and hoping that one of the people Victor sent away is smart enough to be calling up some backup, right about now “You could’ve come down right on top of us if you’d wanted maximum advantage! You could have started attacking the moment you came down.”
The figure doesn’t answer aside from turning its hood to me and peering out of the shadows with a pair of glowing red eyes above two rows of what look like real, bare teeth.
“Don’t suppose we get a name?” asks Victor, flippantly.
The figure turns to him before reaching up, unfastening his robe and then shrugging it off to reveal a slender, humanoid body, entirely made of durasteel.
I quickly dismiss the idea that there might be any flesh in that torso cavity or any of those limbs… there just isn’t space for them!
“You can call me… Death…” says the man whose black metal head is shaped like a skull, with what looks like a set of organic Human teeth mounted into it.
Victor bursts into slightly hysterical giggles for a few moments before shooting back “WOW, your quite extra, ain’t you! It’s like talking to a personification of the concept of ‘edge’! I bet I’d’ve thought you were really cool, when I was 14!… Never imagined the Reaper havin’ a Stateser accent, though(!)”
Seeming irritated (in his bodylanguage, since his face seems completely immobile) by my boss’s total refusal to take him seriously, the cyborg responds “You imagined he’d sip tea with his pinky extended and say ‘Pip pip cheerio! Off to the hereafter with you!’ did you, Limey(?)”
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Suppose I did(!)” shrugs Victor “…No chance we could get you to surrender yourself to our custody and come quietly, is there, Mr Death?”
“None… the Revanchists have requested the heads of both Zurab ‘Peacemaker’ Mudaliar and Emiko ‘Smiles’ Miyazaki… and I mean to deliver them.”
Revanchists? They’re…?
“Oh, fucking hell!” swears Victor “You’re with those arseholes!?”
“You’ve heard of us?” queries the assassin, sounding interested.
“Had a run in with ’em late last year! Pirates and slavers! Suffice it to say, we ain’t best disposed!”
“Then it seems like we have nothing more to talk about, doesn’t it?” says the cyborg as the sides of his thighs burst open, presenting two handles to his hands.
He grabs the daggers and they scream as he ignites them.
---???????’s perspective---
As she’s the most threatening looking by a mile, the first one I aim for is the thickly armored, charging cavewoman.
In that armor, she probably weighs almost as much as I did before I had my torso and skull mechanized!
The big dumb brute has stupidly left her face exposed, so that’s where I aim.
I draw back my left arm and with mathematic precision, launch it forward to hurl the dagger, point first, at her.
Having forced my organic brain into an adrenaline rush, I have no issue processing the extremely granular sense data my bionic eyes are feeding me as the blade flies at the woman who’s out of time (in more ways than one(!))
Her eyes are following the knife and her left arm reaches up to try and snatch it out of the air by its handle.
She doesn’t succeed but her attempt does manage to disturb its flight by enough that, rather than burying itself between her eyes, the point grazes the top of her helmet, leaving a streak of glowing liquid metal, as it ricochets off.
While I throw my other dagger at her stomach, I hold my left hand out and the one that just bounced off her head immediately reverses its direction, returning to my hand.
“THRAN GET DOWN!!!” shouts the Limey, immediately obeyed by the cavewoman as she throws herself into a crouch, the blade, again, skipping over the top of her helmet as it flies back to me, aligned perpendicular to its direction of travel, the one I just threw missing her trunk by an inch.
She wastes no time in resuming her charge, throwing off her partially molten helmet to reveal frizzy, orange hair, tied into a bun and smoking from the heat that was being conducted through the durasteel.
That Brit is annoying me!
When the blades return to my hands I aim my next throws at him.
The bastard snatches both of them out of the air and, without missing a beat, plunges them into the ground, angled in a way that would make them tough to attract back to me, even if he didn’t extinguish them, causing them to quickly freeze in place.
Alright… we’re doing this the hard way then!
I bolt forward!
The cavewoman with the smoking hair is still in the lead, even with the evasive maneuvers she had to take, so I aim for her.
Despite how strong and heavy this body makes me, I tend to prefer an agile, acrobatic fighting style.
In her case, though, I’m going to make an exception!
Math question: What happens when 370lbs of troglodyte in 100lbs of durasteel armor, traveling at more than 25mph, meets 650lbs of almost all durasteel, traveling at 45mph, in a head on collision?
Answer: A sound like a churchbell being struck rings out as she’s hurled backwards and I’m more or less stopped in place!
Her smoking hair finally catches fire as she lies on the ground. Her dazed moans turn to screams as she beats up her own head in an attempt to pat the fire out.
I’ll worry about her again when she gets up.
The Brit, the Blonde, and the ‘Don’ are all on me now.
Having looked up the subHuman’s species when I first saw it, I’m not taken off guard by the speed it ran at me with or the lightning fast grab it makes for my wrist with its upper left manipulator.
I let it grab me and, immediately grab it back, then spin my body, both breaking and dislocating its arm.
It shrieks but I can’t finish it off because the Limey’s silver gloved fist is flying right at my neck and a shoulder tackle from the Starborn blonde is coming right at my stomach.
I whirl out of the way, aiming a slash at the Brit’s forearm as I do.
My claws skip harmlessly off the fabric, confirming it to be stabproof.
“Victor… I can’t… ’s too…” says the subHuman to the Brit, looking like it might be about to pass out from the pain.
“If you can’t fight, get out of here. Follow the others.” says the tall man, decisively, keeping his unflinching gaze fixed on me.
The blue skinned creature gets up and follows those that escaped at the beginning of the fight, its upper left arm hanging limply behind its lower left.
I’ll chase it down, after I’m done with the others.
The cavewoman has managed to extinguish herself and rejoins the other two, large patches of angry, seared flesh visible on her scalp, where her hair has burned off.
The three of them advance on me.
I let them come.
The blonde’s torso and legs are covered with armor, so is the trog’s entire body, except her scorched head.
The Brit has armored gloves and boots as well as a few plates scattered strategically around his body but, like I already saw, slashing and stabbing attacks won’t be much good against his suit.
I’ve already established every weakpoint to aim for and how I’m going to do it when they attack.
Little Miss Stone-Age goes low, from my right, the Starborn comes at me from my left and the Brit charges my center.
I step out of the way and direct a punch at the cavewoman’s temple.
I feel her skull crack and she visibly loses consciousness, her redirected motion making her momentous body almost tackle the Brit (who manages to leap over her as she goes down) and barrel into the blonde who’s temporarily pinned to the ground by the enormous weight… but I’m also hit with numerous damage notifications from the actuators of my right arm!
That trog’s skull must’ve been made of some really solid stuff!
Just me and the Limey left now, I rush him.
I reach out for his lapels and he attempts to dodge.
He would have succeeded too… if he wasn’t fighting someone who could change the length of his limbs at will!
He levels ineffective punches at me as I grab two handfuls of the material at the front of his chest and pull him close to me, extending my legs to make myself more than 7ft tall and leering down at him with the last face he’s ever going to see… the skeletal face of Death!
I headbutt him, breaking his nose and cracking his upper jaw.
He falls limp but is clearly still conscious as I headbutt him again, knocking out three of his teeth.
My brain is inside an inertially dampened container, inside my durasteel cranium, so I can receive head trauma all day!
His, on the other hand… I wonder how many more impacts it’ll take to finish him off!
“That’s quite enough.” comes a calm, level, male voice from behind me.
I turn to see who else wants to die.